by Earl
They closed their minds—but a second too late. The mental gimlet became a battering force, trying to pry further. It was all they could do to resist. Kaligor waved silently and began running. After a mile, the force slipped away, off focus.
“Lost the range,” panted York. “I don’t think they found exactly where we are, in that short time. Only that we’re somewhere in Australia. But now they do know we’re alive! We must get to my space ship, in Sol City, as soon as possible. At least in that, if they find us, we can fly away.”
Constantly on guard now, they set out. In a week they had crossed jungle and desert, reaching a busy seaport. Not disclosing their identity, passing themselves off as explorers, and Kaligor as a mechanical robot the different from those in use for menial labors, they boarded a strato-liner for Sol City. Lacking the necessary paper “money”—units of work based on a technological system—York employed hypnotism to delude the officials into believing he had paid for the passage.
But such details were trivial in dealing with the world of mortals. The burning thought before them was the coming battle to save civilization from the merciless hands of the Three Eternals.
ARRIVING in Sol City, they hastened to York’s space ship, parked in a drome. Once inside, York drew his first easy breath in all those days. He sailed the ship but of the drome, up into the sky. Motioning Vera to the controls, he told her to set a course for the South Pacific, while he set down from memory the data of his subterranean exploration of geological stresses.
“The first thing to do is explode the key island that will counteract the rise of Atlantis and Mu,” he said. “After that, we will reckon with the Eternals.”
Kaligor nodded, his manner charged with anticipation of soon facing the Three who had thought to bury him for all eternity.
Vera was thoughtful. “I wonder why they haven’t probed for us in the past few hours,” she murmured quizzically. “Tony, it’s ominous.”
They knew the answer a few hours later, as they slanted down toward the tiny atoll that must be blasted. There, waiting for them, glinting in the sunlight, was a greenish-hulled ovoid ship.
“The Eternals!” gasped Vera.
York stopped his ship and snapped on his electro-protective screen, expecting immediate battle. But instead, the clear telepathic voice of one of the Three Eternals sounded.
“So, Anton York, you managed to escape your rockbound prison. We again deplore our underestimation of you. How did you do it?”
York was silent.
“No matter,” came the unruffled tele-voice. “After detecting you with our mental probe, in Australia, and failing to pick you up again, we came here, knowing this would be your destination. We have one thing to thank you for—you have made things interesting for us, lightening our age-long ennui. If only you could oppose us further, give us a stirring fight, we would be grateful for the diversion!”
Mockery? Not exactly, it came to York. There was a core of sincerity behind the ironic words.
The Eternals went on. “But, of course, you cannot oppose us. Our twenty thousand years of science will crush your two thousand, We—” The psychic voice stiffened a little. “There is a third person, or mind, aboard your ship. Who—”
Kaligor’s flexible body had been trembling all this time, listening to the words of his ancient, bitter enemies. Now he took an unnecessary step forward.
“It is I, Kaligor!” boomed out the Muan’s tele-voice. “Do you remember me?”
“Kaligor!”
It was a startled chorus from all three Eternals. A moment later a queer ultralight flicked into the cabin, from the other ship. It moved about and finally centered on the robot. Like a detached eye, it roved up and down his body, and it seemed to express amazed bewilderment.
Finally the Eternals broke their shocked silence.
“Yes, it is you, Kaligor. Our tele-eye shows you on our screen. It cannot lie. You were freed by Anton York?”
TAKING evident delight in the telling, Kaligor briefly recounted his rescue.
“Thus I face you again, Three Eternals, like a ghost from the past!” he challenged.
“Kaligor—with Anton York!” The involuntary thought of one of the Eternals, barely perceptible, was a betrayal, as though the combination struck fear. Then hastily: “But no matter. We are about to destroy your ship, and you, Anton York. Kaligor, though indestructible, you will fall to the bottom of the sea. We will capture you again, seal you at the center of Earth perhaps, where no one will blunder in to set you free. You will lie there, spinning your endless dream further, while up here we will snuff, out this Mu-spawn civilization and build the second Atlantide era.”
“You are senile, mentally if not physically,” taunted Kaligor. “Atlantis, and all it stood for, are things of the past. Muan principles and culture will endure. I, Kaligor, say it and—”
At that moment, the Three Eternals opened fire. A soundless blast of energy sprang against York’s electro-screen. The screen held, but succeeding blasts began to send a warning needle higher and higher toward the red danger mark of penetration. One touch of the disintegration beam on the hull and the ship would fall together like a rotten gourd.
York wasted no time firing back, remembering the last encounter where his gamma-sonic weapon had been so ineffective. He fled toward open space, before they brought their paralysis beam to bear.
“Fool!” he cursed himself. “I should have suspected they’d be waiting here. We should have thought of armament first.”
Up the ship arrowed. In free space, York tried his best acceleration, but the green ship of the Eternals clung on the trail relentlessly and drew steadily closer. Any principle of super-velocity York had discovered in his two thousand years of research must be known to the Eternals. And more.
“Tony, what can we do?” Vera moaned.
“Kaligor!” York appealed, in turn. “Can you think of anything?”
There was no answer from the robot, slumped in a comer of the cabin.
“Kaligor!” yelled York frantically.
The Muan started, raised his faceless head.
“What? Is that you, Binti? No—no—what am I saying? Her name is Vera York! What is this world? Tell me. I’m confused.”
“Earth, Kaligor!” groaned York. “Come out of your dream world. The Three Eternals—”
A flash of blinding light, as the enemy’s dis-ray rammed into their screen, brought Kaligor to full awareness.
“The brain wave, York! Use that. Command their screen to fall away!”
YORK tried it, wondering how he had stupidly failed to think of it himself. Vera took the controls. York stared fixedly out at the enemy ship, concentrating. He threw every ounce of his brain power into the mental command for the Eternals’ protective screen to break down, then fired his gamma-sonic weapon.
But the telekinetic force that had molded hard stone like putty failed to crush the super-powerful screen of the Eternals. It was pure energy battling pure energy, again. The only noticeable effect was that the green ship fell back for an instant, as though it had struck something.
York tried again and again, his mind reeled with the draining effort. Each time the enemy ship faltered a little, but its screen held. Staggering, York slipped the brain wave concentrator out of his ear and handed it to Kaligor.
“You try it!” he gasped.
Kaligor held the tiny instrument before his forehead. York and Vera could not see on his featureless face the mental concentration he brought to bear, but the ship of the Eternals bounced back with repeated blows of telekinetic force, a minute later, that exorably.
“Their screen is adamant,” said Kaligor. “They’ll win out in the end, unless—” Rapidly, he outlined a plan. York nodded and waited tensely.
CHAPTER IX
“And Then—Annihilation!”
MALIGOR once more faced the oncoming ship, through the port window. York and Vera could almost feel the tremendous mental forces he was concentrating, second by s
econd. Kaligor released a blast of telekinetic force, a minute later, that hurled the green ship back and back until it vanished in the blackness of space.
At the same time, as they had planned, York shot their ship sideward at a prodigious pace. Then, in successive arcs, he warped their course at a random angle to the last position.
“Enough!” barked Kaligor, five minutes later. “Shut off the motor, the screen, every generator—and close your minds!”
Obeying, the three now drifted in a silent, dark ship as inert as any meteor in space. They felt the mental probe of the Eternals, trying to locate them, but an hour later it ceased.
A broadcast telepathic voice rolled over them.
“You have escaped for the time being, Kaligor and Anton York,” admitted the Eternals. “But we have won. We will go back to Earth, and set up a headquarters on the very island you would have to destroy, to save the Muan civilization. We will wait, on guard. If you return, we will destroy you. When the ancient lands have arisen, and we have constructed Atlantic civilization, we will search you out, in whatever remote corner of the Universe—for the final reckoning!”
Vera signaled the two men to keep their minds locked, when they were about to relax. Understanding, for it might be a ruse to discover them, they waited. It was not till three hours later that they cautiously opened their minds. No mental probe greeted them.
“They’ve gone back to Earth,” sighed York, “as they said.” He went on heavily. “They have won. We know now that we can’t penetrate their screen. They can ours, in a longer battle.”
“But, Tony, why can’t we build a better screen, and find some force to penetrate theirs?” suggested Vera.
York shook his head. “It would take years—centuries! In that time, civilization will be destroyed, the very thing we’re trying to save. Don’t you see, Vera? The Eternals are eighteen thousand years ahead of us. Ahead of Kaligor, too, for he lay impotent, dreaming, for that long time while they crawled up the scale of science.”
“Impotent! Dreaming!” Kaligor gave a mental sigh. “Yes, dreaming. Ah, if I could only use some of the science of my dream world! Mirbel and Binti, that time they fought the triple minds of Kashtal, had a wonderful weapon. . . . But it is no use. Their science was of the six-dimensional Universe, useless in ours. All dream stuff, all, all—”
York arid Vera almost pitied him, as he faded away into his dream world again, where all harsh realities could be solved.
“There’s only one hope,” pondered York. “Developing the telekinetic force. If we make a larger concentrator, one for all three of our minds at once, we might get a large enough blast out of it to smash their screen, instead of just pushing them away. What do you think of that, Kaligor?”
But Kaligor was lost in his dream, and Vera firmly silenced York’s half angry shouts to awake him.
“Tony,” she said softly, “waking from a beautiful dream is the worst feeling in all the world. Let poor Kaligor break into waking life gradually. He has been twenty thousand years in that other world—only a few days in ours!”
A WEEK later, after a slow, careful cruise lest the Eternals detect them with long-range finders, they landed on an isolated section of the Moon, away from mining outposts.
Despite their grim situation, it amused them to tune in the radio news from the world of mortals.
“A dozen more ships have now docked, with burned-out instruments, and reported the same mysterious occurrence of last week, out in space somewhere between Earth and Moon,” said one announcer. “Without warning, loose energy of some sort surged in that area, burning out all radios, lighting systems, and intership phones. Dr. Emanuel Harper, famous physicist, estimates that some forty-five trillion ergs of energy were expended in a few minutes, at some point thousands of miles away from his particular ship.
“This would be enough energy to light all of Sol City for three thousand years! It was all scattered away in a few minutes. Who or what could do that? Is Anton York out there somewhere? What is he doing? A thousand years ago he moved planets. Is he preparing some similar engineering feat, to again astound mankind?”
Vera smiled wanly. “Another chapter in the mythology of Anton York is writing itself. The truth they would not even believe!”
Pooling their scientific knowledge, Kaligor and York worked out a large-sized brain wave concentrator. In the workshop room of York’s ship was every conceivable scientific tool. For raw material they used the molecules of the Lunar terrain, shaping them into any metal or product with applied chemical telekinesis.
They tested the machine one day. All three of them poured a combined mental command into the receiver. With creaks and groans that they felt as vibration through the ship, a nearby Lunar mountain moved back ten feet!
“Remember that old Biblical adage, Vera?” said York, awed himself. “ ‘If ye have faith, ye can move a mountain!’ ”
York had moved much greater things at one time—whole worlds in fact. But he had used world-moving energies produced through gigantic machines. What they had done now had been done purely through mind, with the veriest of thoughts. And thoughts were limitless in scope.
They could have commanded the mountain to dance away and plunge into space at the speed of light, had they wished. Even so, would this great new force prevail against the ultra-scientific Eternal Three?
They sailed to Earth, boldly now. The Three Eternals had already begun construction of a marble home, like that on Mount, Olympus, on the key island in the Pacific. Their green-hulled ship came to meet them. Over the ocean waters they battled.
The Eternals hurled their Jovian charges of energy against York’s screen, rapidly wearing it down. Keeping their nerves in check, York, Vera and Kaligor stood before their brain wave projector. At Kaligor’s signal, they thrust a common mental command into the receiver.
A measurelessly powerful telekinetic beam leaped for the enemy ship. But nothing happened. Its screen did not buckle, as they had hoped.
And the ship itself did not even budge one inch, where at least it should have been dashed away!
“Failed, didn’t it?” came the taunting telepathic voice from the Three Eternals. “We managed to deduce it was telekinetic force with which you escaped last time. We’ve installed a simple enough counter radiator that split your beam and caused it to flow around our ship.”
BEYOND, where the split beam rejoined and angled down to the ocean’s broad bosom, water churned madly, A mile-deep hole appeared, clapped together again, and sent a mile-high wall of water rolling toward distant shores. Hours later, several coastal cities of mortal man would be wrecked by the greatest “tidal wave” in history.
“And now,” came the frosty announcement, “prepare for death!”
A particularly vicious blast shook York’s ship and nearly burst through his screen. York jerked his ship up and away. Flight again! But with no hope this time of escape.
So it seemed. Hounding them, the Eternals’ ship prepared to send its final barrage against York’s tattered screen. In another moment—annihilation.
But queerly, the Eternals suddenly lost the range. Their ship blundered past, almost striking them, and went on, as though searching. Soon it had lost itself in the curtain of space. York saw then that Kaligor was still standing before the telekinesis projector. Only now he turned away.
“Hypnosis,” he explained wearily, as though it had drained all his mind. “I hypnotized them into the belief that we had suddenly become invisible. Change course quickly, York. They will be back in an instant. It won’t work twice.”
York, as once before, shifted the ship at random arcs till they were far from their original position. The Eternals did not appear. Safe, for the time being.
They hardly spoke to one another in the next hour, as their ship cruised slowly in space. With the brain wave projector useless against the Eternals, they could think of no other weapon or force to try.
“But we have to do something,” said York haggardly. “We
can’t give up. Kaligor, is there anything—anything—”
Kaligor shrugged wearily and lapsed into his escape world of dreams. York almost envied him and wished that he might dream so pleasantly. But York’s dreams, lately, had been nightmares in which the Three Eternals endlessly chased him to the remotest corners of space and time.
Vera smiled at him wanly.
“You must rest, Tony,” she admonished gently. “Let’s forget about the Three Eternals for awhile. Maybe our minds, fresher, will think of something later. Let’s look out at the peaceful stars.”
They turned out the cabin lights and sat arm in arm before a wide port, gazing out at the star-powdered vault of the firmament. They talked over their many wanderings in space, trying to forget the maddening menace behind them. Venus gleamed brilliantly among the stars.
“Remember bringing an asteroid to Venus, as its new moon?” murmured Vera. “How happy we were in that accomplishment. So many Earth settlers sighed for moonlight, through the long Venusian nights.”
She felt her husband start slightly.
“Vera!” he whispered tensely. “You’ve given me an idea. Suppose we towed away another asteroid, took it to Earth. Suppose we gave it a tremendous velocity, and aimed it for the key island. Even the Eternals wouldn’t be able to stop trillions of tons of hard rock plunging down without warning upon their heads!”
YORK woke Kaligor, after much mental shouting, and outlined the plan to him. “Good!” agreed the Muan.
Once more hope went with them as they maneuvered far from Earth’s vicinity, out to the barren asteroids. After some search, they singled out a dense little body roughly five miles in diameter. Their ship was no more than a grain of sand beside it, but before long they were nudging it out of its age-old orbit, with the illimitable forces of their telekinetic projector.
Hour by hour it gained velocity, in the long stretch of space toward Earth.
York spent brain-numbing hours over the equations of its course. He had to hit precisely one certain spot on Earth, the while it inexorably continued to revolve and rotate. It took timing to seven decimal places. It was super-ballistics, with the asteroid in the role of a gigantic shell shot from a mythical cannon against a target that moved in the four dimensions of space time.